Car Insurance/Ombusman theft

tajinder400

Hi Guys,

I have been having some issues with my car insurance, and now the financial ombudsman about a car insurance claim for a theft. To give some background to this, I had originally bought the car for £20,000, and it was stolen within two months of ownership. I was offered a value of £13,700, and in the end took this to the ombudsman.

The car in question is a 2006 B7 Audi RS4 Saloon Quattro at around 84k miles, with a copious amount of optional extras. I’m consistently being quoted that the optional extras do not matter due to the age of the car. This being said when checking against Parkers, CAP and the Glass guides. Normally I’d understand that this would make sense for a normal car, but due to the sort of car this is, I don’t believe it applies.

I have quoted various autotrader, and pistonhead links to get the point across, and the ombudsman has pointed out that this isn’t as reliable as the guides, due to the vehicles potentially not selling for listing price. Which again, I do very much understand being the case. When searching for the same car with similar specification on autotrader, they are going for much more than £20,000. I do see where they could have potentially got the

My issue is I don’t think I’m getting the point correctly across, that this cars factory optional extras have a great impact on the value of this car, and they don’t deserve to be disregarded. Some of the extras off the top of my head being the black optics pack, recaro bucket seats, and ceramic brakes (there are much more). If anything, the car in parts would be worth more than the value I was offered by insurance.

I have yet to ask the ombudsman what online listings he has seen of the car, but I’d like to understand what would be the best way for me to approach this going forward before I do that.

Here is a quote from the email received from the ombudsman which hopefully will give some insight:

“It’s worth pointing out too that the guides can take factory optional extras into account in providing a valuation. However, the guides don’t think the optional extras add extra value to your vehicle. I can’t say I find that particularly unusual for a car which is 13 years old.

I have also considered the evidence you’ve submitted showing adverts for similar vehicles with higher prices; but I’m afraid I’m not persuaded that these represent stronger evidence than the guide prices. I must bear in mind that adverts are not selling prices, and many factors can significantly affect the price of a vehicle. In most basic terms, vehicles will often be advertised for higher than they are sold; or may not be sold at that price at all.

Not all of the adverts you provided are still online, but I’ve searched myself too and seen similar vehicles for not significantly more than Admiral’s valuation. I’m happy to provide these separately if you would like.

To go against the guide prices I would need to be satisfied that they were significantly out of line with the market. And I don’t think there’s enough evidence to suggest that they are.”

I’m willing to post more information about the specification of the car, but I believed it was best to come here for some general advice on how to deal with this. I potentially may be able to find all the parts individually online along with adverts similar to my car, to get the point across. But it doesn’t seem like there are even cars out there with all the same specification as mine. Nor do they believe it matters at all, even though I really don’t believe this to be the case.

When it comes down to it, I don’t think they’d reasonably be able to find me a car with the same specification for that price. To be totally honest if they could do that, I would gladly accept it, if it actually did match that specification.

I appreciate any help I can have with this! Thanks!


Edit: Has anyone had any chance with turning this sort of situation around? It doesn't have to be specifically this one. But how to deal with the ombudsman correctly to get my point across?

Quentin

The point made that asking prices in adverts in autotrader are not market values is correct!

Sellers set a higher than market value price in the knowledge that buyers will invariably expect to pay less than the asking price

tajinder400

I understand that, I just don't get how they can discredit the optional extras all together. The value they have given matches cars listed with basic specification. I also don't understand how the value could be marked up so high, if they believe it's that much lower.


Thanks

BoGoF

Was the £13,700 offer the insurance companys first offer?

tajinder400

Their first offer was 13,000, which I told them I wasn't happy with. They came back with £13,700; hence why it's with the ombudsman now. I'm just wondering the best way to get evidence across to them.

BoGoF

I have to say I'm with the Ombudsman on this one. What price can you put on optionsl extras that are 12/13 years old....they are now of negligible value.

You may get more opinions on the motoring board.

csgohan4

optional extras don't much value to an old car tbh. a more beefed up wheels or nice scuff plates pales in comparison to say a Bentley or ferrari

dacouch

The FOS do say if you "recently purchased" the vehicle then the price you paid is regarded as being the value of the car. You could try pointing this out to them but two months is pushing it a bit.

The FOS are unlikely to have consulted the guides but generally ask the Insurer to provide the figures they obtained from the guides.

Did Admiral use all three guides to obtain an average value? If not then they should have done and the FOS should be aware of this requirement.

The FOS do have a proviso in the guidelines for valuing a vehicle in that in unsual vehicles the guides cannot be relied on and a report by a suitably qualified engineer may be accepted. Again whether a highly spec Audi would fit this criteria is debatable.

Why would you insure such a car with Admiral

tajinder400

Thanks for the reply.


I will try the first option of saying "recently purchased", but I do doubt that'll work.


The FOS did check the guides themselves after to make sure Admiral did do all the checks correctly. In the end the other two results came up roughly the same as the highest one. (Though Admiral did try to say the lower ones were coming up at £8k).


Could you potentially elaborate on the engineer aspect? I'll look through the FOS site, and see if I can find it there also. I'd try going that route too if i can. But would they even be able to "value" a car that I don't have anymore is the question.


Lastly, in regards to Admiral, I really wanted to insure this under some form of classic car policy. But the car was slightly too young to be classified as a classic car, so I was unable to do that. I did also look into some form of GAP insurance, but the car was too old hahah.



To be honest, is it even possible to ask them to try and replace the car like for like? They'd have a very hard time doing that, but at least I'd be able to get it back. Would have more use to me than what they offered, as that wont get me very much in regards to the same car!


Either way, thanks for the reply! Pointed out some interesting points I think that are worth looking into.

dacouch

This is The Ombudsman's current guide / requirements on valuing a car, they made it more consumer friendly a couple of years ago and removed all the technical parts...

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

Here is the archived version of it that you will find a lot more helpful

https://web.archive.org/web/20150217163709/https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

9. vehicles recently purchased second-hand
If the consumer only recently bought their car second-hand, we generally assume that they paid the market value price – although we will consider any evidence the insurer can provide that this was not the case.

forgotmyname

Price guide says £13,950 for a dealer sale.

Plenty on Autotrader for around that money. Some with HUGE spec whatever that means?

You would expect most of these cars to have quite a few options ticked.